Presentation and Rhetoric Training Simplified

Tag Archives: meeting summary

Participation

This meeting’s 23 participants included 7 guests, some of them new and some familiar, as our guests are inspired to come back for a second or third time. We also had visitors from other local clubs, enthusiastic to join in and benefit from our dynamic meetings.

Communication

Jörg ran the meeting, his very first time as Toastmaster. The Toastmaster of the Evening roll is the major meeting roll, and normally with practice the TME gains the skills to become good. I can safely say, Jörg was good on this, his very first go. He ran a smooth, dynamic and professional event both in meeting preparation and execution.

Speeches were given by Isabelle, her second speech project (Organise your speech structure); Eleonore, speaking from the advanced Humorously Speaking manual; Karla, again an advanced speech from the Speeches by Management manual, and Ben, an Icebreaker speech to start over again from the very first Competent Communicator manual.

Finally, we reviewed points of strength and development. Official speech evaluations were offered by Christian S, Ben, Barbara, and guest Cezar, and Iris gave a general evaluation.

Some after-meeting networking took place at the restaurant next door, where 8 members & guests stopped for a drink. The fact that 1/3 of the attendees met afterwards highlights our club’s culture of friendly exchange and support.

Organisation

Some points and observations to help us improve our next meetings:

Time Keeping

Iris’ general evaluation included one very important observation, that we sometimes “sacrifice time for content”. Speaking for too long. While the structured parts of the meeting (speeches, evaluations) are timed, other rolls are not, and sometimes we lose track of time. So ancillary roll holders (including but not exclusively : humorist, word of the day, continuity (TME)) should anticipate and plan their delivery to be succinct and communicative. This is great feedback, as it can lead to change and individual growth.

Venue

The Saalbau venue was large, had good acoustics, and was business like, and met the increasing demand of our growing guest numbers.

Evaluations

Email addresses and evaluation slips were collected and distributed before the meeting began. Super!

New Members

Two returning guestsm Cezar and Andrey, announced that they are ready to submit their membership forms. This is another sign that our meetings meet the needs of our members to develop their public speaking skills in a friendly and formative environment.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting will also take place at the Saalbau Gallus, on 18th march, 19.30-21.30. This will be our bi-annual Club Speech Contest. Guests are very welcome to join us at this and future meetings.

Participation

23 participants including four new guests and some guests coming back for a second time or visiting from the Toastmasters Rhetorik Club. Two former guests have now become members: Chu-Ping and Bertalan. Welcome! 🙂

Communication

Karla did a great job as a Toastmaster both in meeting preparation and execution. Most importantly, she dealt with the problem when the flu caught some of our speakers, by finding replacements. Bertalan, first-time guest last meeting, already gave his ice breaker this meeting. Asli gave her fourth speech and Christian gave the business input with a talk from an advanced manual on management. Evaluations were given by Claire, Jochen and Martin. Jörg prepared the impromptu speaking ‘table topics’ for the first time and surprised us all with questions with different difficulty scores. Many guests took the chance and conquered the stage. Finally, Moritz gave a thorough general evaluation of the meeting. Some after-work communication and networking kept going in the nearby Fox and Hound.

Organisation

Some points and observations to help us improve our next meetings:

Venue

The great interest in our club made one thing clear: the current room is starting to become too small: extra chairs had to be borrowed from other rooms. This implies we do need a larger venue for the next meetings.

When new people come in during speeches and no seats are left, they should be signalled to wait quietly inside the door wait till after the speech for finding a seat.

Evaluations

We should continue making the use of evaluation slips and the EvaluateMe APP a regular habit, and maybe put time for this on the agenda

Email addresses and evaluation slips were collected and distributed before the meeting began. Super!

Back-Up Speakers

Ensure the reserve speakers are on stand by.

Make sure that the toastmaster has access to all phone numbers.

New Members

Chu Ping and Bertalan are now members of our club. Welcome 🙂 This brings the number of members to 28, an increase of 8 since January 1st.

Next Meeting

The current venue is not available for our next venue, so an alternative will be arranged and publicised on this website as soon as possible.

There is no slowing down of the interest and participation in our meetings, as shown my the presence of 13 members and 8 guests. A special welcome was extended to our newest members, Geoffrey and Ivan H, by our VP Membership, Christoph.

This meeting was run in informal yet efficient way, providing once more a comfortable environment to practice and improve public speaking skills.

Communication

We enjoyed a full agenda, with 3 speeches. Geoffrey and Jörg both gave their first, Ice Breaker, speeches, to introduce themselves to the club. Olaf continued his succesful run of speeches, this time marrying leadership lessons with a business focus.

Oral and Written Evaluations were given by Barbara, and Esprit de Corps Toastmasters club members, Yani and Justin.

Karla managed Table Topics impromptu speaking. She innovated by selecting 5 speakers in advance, including Bertalan, Carlos, Andre, Ivan, and Barbara. The subjects were inspiring so as to be interesting and provocative, and broad so as to enable the speakers to develop the topics.

Organisation

Asli presided for the second time as TME. We always aim to learn and improve. A number of points for improvement to work on for next time (summarized from our General Evaluation & other feedback) include:

Venue

The room is very comfortable, business like and access is easy from the main station.

With 21 seats, the room may become too small for our meetings.

Is it possible to find a bar or restaurant close by for after-meeting networking?

Sergeant at Arms

Name tags help guests recognise members and make them feel at ease.

Evaluation slips were placed on the table. Lets make this a permanent feature of our meetings: S@A can place them in advance on the tables,

Electronic evaluation tools: the S@A wrote the speakers’ emails on the flip chart in advance, so evaluation could be given without interrupting the meeting.

Meeting Execution

The TME can ask the timer to summarise speaking time after each speaking section.

TME: allowing support roll holders to introduce their rolls is an option, which teaches members to express themselves concisely. Useful for guests too.

Table Topics Evaluation – either have a TT evaluator, or have the General Evaluator do it.

All rolls on the agenda have a brief description, except Timer and General Evaluator. Should this change?

more people should be General Evaluator – it’s not very popular, but we’re here to learn.

The Grammarian did an excellent job finding phrases to work on and phrases that were excellent.

All evaluations were well balanced. Good standards are being achieved.

As TME, Asli will finalise attendance, rolls, and close out the meeting in Easy Speak.

UPCOMING EVENTS

The club level competition for the International Speech Contest & Evaluation Contest take place on Wednesday 18th March. Contact Ben or Claire to be a contestant.